


Sentimental Value

by Nitrobot



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Napoleon totally ships gallya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 10:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4603002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaby may just be a 'chop shop girl', but she can fix more than just cars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sentimental Value

They still had one night reserved at their hotel, and they had just saved the world from the brink of a nuclear apocalypse- that alone, Napoleon asserted, made it perfectly mandatory that they celebrate still being alive. At the promise of free whisky, Gaby heartfully agreed. 

Illya, among many other things, just wanted to go home. He'd been staring at his hands too long for it to be purely out of awkwardness, or the usual out-of-placeness most men felt at gatherings either too large or too small for them. It was still there, no doubt about it, stretched wide over his shoulders like an iron shawl, but it was masked under something more private, an intimacy that Gaby couldn't recognise. 

His face was a plane of ice, save for the smoldering cerulean of his eyes. Only getting to see half of them under his eyelids was driving her mad, making her wish he'd just glance up and acknowledge that yes, he was being rude. Maybe it was an exclusively Russian thing, as if the wall wasn't enough to cut them off from the rest of humanity. 

Every so often his fingers would twitch, tapping against that handful of whatever he guarded before suddenly stopping, lacing back together as if he'd been caught slipping poison into someone's drink.

Gaby held the rim of her glass against her lip, staring with a sudden suspicion into its contents. Of all the things to compare to, she went with the one that spoiled her buzz. She wished she could blame Illya for it, but she wasn't drunk enough for responsibility to take leave of her yet.

He was tapping away again. Either he was planning on sleeping with sore fingers or he was being deliberately distracting, sub-consciously harkening to her. He distantly reminded her of a stray dog, wary of attention yet craving it all the same.

She'd humour him. After all, fiance or not, she was certain that she owed him for something. Most likely involving saving her life. 

As expected, Napoleon was too invested in something pretty (specifically, the gaggle of young women who'd seemed to always be lingering around the hotel lobby ever since they checked in) to notice her rising, abandoning her glass to join Illya on his little sofa-island in the corner. It was the only place in the lounge with no windows, the shadows casting Illya like an ancient statue.

Then again, not many statues almost jumped when someone fell down beside them. 

"Everyone needs a break from him at some point," she said, running a hand through her hair and nodding towards Napoleon and all his new giggling girlfriends. Illya followed her gaze, still wide-eyed from surprise. He made a sound that might have meant agreement or something else entirely in God-knows how may languages that she didn't know yet. At least his fingers were still, guarding something in his hands.

"What's that you've got?" she asked, shuffling herself along for a closer look.

Illya glanced at her, then to his hidden prize, and back to her all over again. One hand melted away, falling to his side and showed a smudged clock face on a leather strap wrapped around the other. 

"It's stopped working," he revealed just as she noticed the hands refusing to budge along to the correct time and the absence of ticking. He brushed a thumb over the glass face, as if it would change under his touch. "It has survived over eight winters and a nuclear threat, yet one day in cowboy's suitcase has broken it."

Gaby might have laughed if it wasn't for the remorse weighing his voice down, the words barely struggling past his throat. And to think all her father left her was some old photos and a whole lot of questions.

She squinted, noting the frame of the watch and where the strap fed into the face. For the all their wars spent together, other than the lettering there wasn't really much difference between Russian and German watches.

"I can take a look at it," Gaby offered, flicking her eyes back to Illya. "If you want."

The ice was thawing, allowing a spark of consideration to flit across his expression. He met her gaze with a raised eyebrow. "Could you fix it?" His inflection turned it into more of a plea than a challenge, but in his eyes she could see the doubt buried under the blue.

Every day, they seemed to be wrestling. 

"No promises, but... I can try," she compromised, leaning against the top of their shared sofa. Illya moved the watch over to his other hand, debating with himself over whether to hand it over or not. While he decided she tilted her head, peering closer at the watch.

"I like that it has your last name engraved," she pointed out, drawing another surprised (almost suspicious) look from Illya.

"You can read Cyrillic?" he asked slowly, as if she'd just decoded ancient Egyptian. She couldn't help feeling smug at at.

"I've been teaching myself," she explained with a shrug. "I recognised some of the letters and filled in the gaps."

She didn't know if that had any impact on his decision, but he eventually relented and passed the watch over to her. "Take care with it, please." It was an obvious requirement that he couldn't help saying anyway, trusting Gaby's thin fingers to hold it. "My father would be furious enough as it is."

Suddenly, Gaby found herself curious, even more so than when she'd been playing the silent observer. "Was he a good man? Your father?" Being so abruptly without one all over again, it seemed that she was allowed to be irredeemably nosy about the paternal affairs of others.

"There are no good men," Illya assured her with the confidence and regret of a man who automatically counted himself in that population. "But good or not, all sons are bound to their father's orders."

"And what were yours?"

Illya looked away, reaching for a glass by his side for the first time. "To protect what remained of him," he stated, taking a slow sip of copper courage.

Gaby watched him drink, the slow swallows of a well rehearsed alcoholic, or someone trying to be one. With a glance at the broken memory in her hands, she firmly wrapped it around one of them and placed the other on Illya's shoulder. "I'd say you've done a pretty good job so far," she said, meeting his sideways glance. "I think he'd be proud of you." His cheek was smooth under her lips as they pressed down, leaving the barest blur of lipstick on his skin after she'd risen to her feet. It was a shadow to the almost-kisses they'd missed before, but it would do for now. 

Mostly because it was enough to almost make poor Illya splutter on his drink, dribbling out his apathy in front of the whole evening crowd. Gaby was at the hotel lobby by the time he recovered, looking over her shoulder at him. Napoleon had been watching them the whole time of course, now helpfully chuckling at the Russian's expense and temporarily detaching from his girls to stroll over to him. She hovered just long enough to hear the American's advice; "You know, you could always go over to reception, swap your room for a double bed-"

And then Illya's response. "Finishing that thought will put you on some _very_ thin ice, cowboy."

That kept her smiling up to their hotel room.


End file.
